Continuing with our discussion about mobile technology in libraries this past week I've been thinking about my former academic library. A couple of years ago, we gave serious consideration to buying tablets for our students to check out. Personally, I thought it was a cool, useful service, but the evidence didn't really back that up. Very rarely did we see students using e-readers and/or tablets in the library and there did not seem to be a big demand for them (not the same way we always needed more laptops for student to check out). In the end, we decided against it and purchased laptops and graphing calculators instead, since these were frequently requested by our students.
A couple of days ago I came across an article about a public library that is in the process of doing away with desktop computer stations in favor of tablets for patrons to use while in the library. It just goes to show, you've got to know your constituents to be successful!
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